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Friday, September 16, 2011

School Day Revamp

After 4 weeks of school, I've decided that we're going to try something a little different for our schedule. Up until now we have done breakfast, cleaned up, devotional, all kids do workboxes 1-6, lunch break, then workboxes 7-9 (which are combined subjects of Science, History, and English). Now, I really like the IDEA of how this system is supposed to work, but I have run into a couple of snags.
Snag #1) For my set up to work, all the kids need to work at the same pace and finish each box at the same time. This is more hassle than it's worth most of the time. Kids finish early, or aren't finished when everyone else is and then it throws off everyone else. But my children aren't independent enough in their school work to go at their own individual paces.
Snag #2) The girls frequently need help, or at least monitoring on subjects I didn't think they would need help with.
Snag #3) Trent needs to learn how to do his preschool activities, and right now he just kinda does his own thing rather than doing his "work." Thus we have permanent marker on the wall, toothpaste all over the bathroom, and a little boy sporting eyeshadow and nail polish. You get the drift.

So......the NEW IDEA is to set up an activity table each monday with about 10 activities on it (things like sensory bins, toys, art supplies, tot trays, ect.). Each child will do their school with me in a one on one block while the other two play with the activity table things, outside, or with their baby sister.
Our new schedule will look something like this:
Breakfast and clean up
Devotional
Audrey's school time with mom - Trent and Marissa play
Trent's school time with mom - Marissa and Audrey play
Marissa's school time with mom - Audrey and Trent play
Lunch, clean up, and break time
Science - History - English when Bree goes down for an afternoon nap

Seeing as how I need to account for Bree's feedings in the morning routine as well as her naps and wake times things will not always go directly from one thing to another but we'll strive for the best!!! I figure that by January Bree will be on a set schedule which will allow us to have a more timely school day.
We'll try out the new plan on Monday and see how it goes. Wish me luck!!!! If it doesn't work out I'm sure you'll see a similar post in about 4 weeks........lol.

2 comments:

Your revamped schedule is basically what I do. I do one-on-one stuff in the morning. Whatever isn't finished, we finish after lunch. After that, we do our history and science lessons together. It's so much easier. M and R aren't completely ready to do math on their own, so I do their lesson together. And reading practice is always one-on-one. It really isn't as hard to do this as I thought...And L is old enough (I realize Trent isn't, though : ):) :) ) to play by herself when her school stuff is done, that I really don't have to have anything planned for her. She does plays with her toys or draws. Occasionally, she gets into the refrigerator, but that has nothing to do with being bored, that's just her personality. :)

About Us

She's a stay-at-home, homeschool mom of 4 kids. She loves reading, listening to music, playing board games, and hanging out with family and friends.
He works at Teleperformance and is going to school at the OWATC to get into graphic design.